Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown

10 reviews

cdoubet's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Violence, Genocide, Death of parent, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Mental illness, Hate crime, Animal death, Blood, Murder, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Kidnapping, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Torture, Confinement, Vomit, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual content, Car accident, Medical content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, and Self harm

er1ngobraugh's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

The story was pretty slow until the last quarter but the writing is compelling. Starting the second book with the hope it starts of quick.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, and Violence

Moderate: Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Classism, and Death of parent

Minor: Death of parent, Kidnapping, and Animal death

socialpsysteph's review

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This book sounded super intriguing, the cover is BEAUTIFUL, and I love the setting/world so I was excited to see if this could live up to my own hype. Unfortunately, it fell a little short. Most of the plot was super predictable, which made it a little boring at times. There were also scenes that just didn't make sense, characters were able to move or do things that just wouldn't be possible but it was needed for the story so it happened. I also noticed several grammatical/spelling errors throughout which really irked me. The redeeming feature of this book is that the magic system and culture are really interesting and that was what kept me from DNFing the thing. I most likely won't be continuing the series unless I see some stellar reviews for book two.

This book counts for r/Fantasy Bingo 2022 for a book set in Africa, for Popsugar 2022 for a book set in a nonpatriarchal society, and for the Magical Readathon 2022 Autumnal Equinox for an O (Foundations in Necromancy) for Conjuration for a book with necromancy themes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Racism, Kidnapping, and Violence

strawberrytheauthor's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This book was so good! There were wonderful tropes I love and also magic and mythology I hadn’t heard before. I love fantasy stories that include mythology based off of places on Earth. This was based of West and North African Folktales.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Colonisation, Death, Xenophobia, Vomit, Violence, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Animal death, Classism, Confinement, Death of parent, Grief, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, and Racism

Moderate: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Self harm, Slavery, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Sexual content

audreyloopy's review

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was a slow starter for me, it wasn’t until the Solstasia events really got going that I got hooked. But after that it was a real page-turner! It’s a wonderfully rich world and the characters are a fun swap to typical fantasy tropes. I won’t call it “diverse” necessarily, but it’s definitely badly-needed POC rep in fantasy. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent and Kidnapping

maidmarianlib's review

adventurous dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

An interesting world, characters and plot are pretty typical but has some good twists and kept me interested. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Violence, Death, Death of parent, and Panic attacks/disorders

corriejn's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No

4.25

First two thirds or so of this book were great: skilled worldbuilding, introduction of characters and storylines that were destined to clash. However, things fall a part a bit when the author actually gets to resolving how those various storylines interact and resolve. Brown seems to want to be N. K. Jemisin, but falls short. Too many flat, undeveloped characters who pop in to be major parts of the narrative, too many twists and turns that aren't foreshadowed or a logical part of the story, but just tossed in and basically rewrite the worldbuilding and characters that were more skillfully introduced earlier. I don't plan to read the rest of this series. It started off really promising through most of this volume, but ended up a jumbled mess.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Classism, Death, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Death of parent, Grief, Kidnapping, Racism, Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Child abuse, Alcohol, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Vomit, and Physical abuse

Minor: Cannibalism, War, and Torture

sj_elli's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I feel like not enough people are talking about this book or have been talking about this book and they need to be. It is inspired by West African folklore and I guess it was pitched as Aladdin & Jasmine, but if they had to kill each other - which I had no clue until I was looking at reviews. I was going to say it had very Aladdin vibes. The narrators were fantastic. The story was so easy to get immersed in fully. I didn't want to stop listening and I couldn't listen fast enough to consume the story. I thought the second book was already out and my heart broke a little when I discovered it's not out until November. Highly recommend this read for any YA Fantasy fans! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Death of parent, Kidnapping, and Violence

arkenst0ne's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Animal death, Panic attacks/disorders, Vomit, Murder, Mental illness, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Death, and Blood

massivepizzacrust's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Amazing! So happy I finally picked it up. The setting, the characters, the plot... *chef's kiss*
Looking forward to the next one. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Xenophobia, Death, Hate crime, and Kidnapping

Minor: Violence and Animal death

Disturbing content is very much in the context of the setting, not glorified or done for shock value. Main characters only commit violence as a last resort.